About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

Then all too suddenly, we were visited upon by relatives from back in the Klang Valley, specifically Irfan's cousins Aiman and Zara and their family. It was the first time they visited Perlis.

As per the standard operating procedure, we took them around the state - the smallest in the country - starting with the bustling, tourist-filled bazaars of Padang Besar. Zara bought new a toy there. Ain brought them to her vendors of choice.

The duty-free store at the Thai border is also a tourist favourite. Just as it was 25 years ago, I still wished Padang Besar had a decent book store, but I guess visitors here are more concerned with getting a good deal for wares rather than books. In any case, Zara got to ride in a duty-free shopping cart.

The standard operating procedure ensured that we next visited GuaKelam, where they appeared to have fixed the lights that had been broken in our last visit. There was even a camera crew from some TV studio in the caves.

Breaking through to the far end of the cave, we came to the picnic and camp ground, but seeing that it's way past noon we figured this would be a very brief stop to enjoy the greenery before we headed back through the cave. A video of the walk back to the car park can be viewed here!

Much later in the afternoon we went to Kuala Perlis to watch the sunset. Irfan and Aiman watched mudskippers and poked at crab holes in the low tide.

The weekend went by fast and they had to drive back to Pulau Pinang to catch a flight home the following day. We hope they would stay longer so we could do more activities together here in Perlis.

We are now back in the Classic Trilogy era after a foray into The Force Awakens paper miniatures for an entry or four. Rebel Alliance's SpecForce battalions are many. Among them are the SpecForce Pathfinders and SpecForce Infiltrators. A mixed SpecForce squad comprised the rebel commando strike team that sabotaged the Endor shield generator.

Once upon a time, I marvelled at Irfan's then-newfound abilities to reach a light switch.

These days he's repairing the bicycle Atok bought for him last year all on his own. Here we see him attempting to remove his bike's forward and rear lights which he had purchased and installed himself during the weekend. He even bought and installed the batteries for his lights himself.

He even went to the bike shop alone to replace his seat, as 14-year-olds normally do.

Last Saturday night's Star Wars X-Wing Miniature game turned out well. It was Ain's first game ever so Irfan and I decided to make this a straight up dogfight. No extra cards, no obstacles, no missions. Just blast each other out of the sky with what you have.

I played Darth Vader in the TIE Advanced.

Irfan was Luke Skywalker in the T-65 X-wing fighter and Ain, to give her an edge over me, flew the YT-1300 freighter Millennium Falcon with the Han Solo card.

It turned out that even with Darth Vader's high initiative number, the Falcon was quite a powerhouse in combat. At first I ignored it and went after the X-wing. We both passed each other at full speed and did a dropkick Koiogran turn, while the Falcon seemed to be swerving out toward the edge of the battlemat. Suddenly she banked right back into the fray. All my shots missed, thank you very much, totally useless Targeting Lock.

Because of the Falcon's 360 degree firing arc, it was easier for the freighter to hit me than me to hit it. My 2 Shields and 3 Hull were depleted pretty fast.

The Guavian Death Gang could conceivably be your player characters' generic criminal enemies in your RPG campaign. Don't forget to take into account the Guavian Security Soldiers' illegal cybernetics that boost their agility and strength while allowing them to network with each other using high-frequency datastreams as they fight your players.

Here are a bunch of First Order Snowtroopers and Flametroopers for your tabletop use, should you even find yourself about thirty years after the Battle of Endor and shunted into the new canon timeline.